


It's Only Love

by Catolyn



Series: Leading With My Heart [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catolyn/pseuds/Catolyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers loves Darcy Lewis.</p>
<p>
  <i>Steve loves the way Darcy talks with her hands; all frenzied emotion and large gestures.</i>
</p>
<p>And Darcy Lewis loves Steve Rogers</p>
<p>
  <i>Darcy was a little afraid of how quickly she’d fallen in love with Steve. It was that fear that had her holding on to the words ‘I love you’ until she was in the hospital after jumping out of a moving car to escape her kidnappers.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And I Love Her

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a departure from my writing style in the rest of the series. 
> 
> All characters belong to someone else.

Steve loves the way Darcy talks with her hands; all frenzied emotion and large gestures. He loves the way her eyes gleam with amusement. And he’s regretted every time he’s ever done anything to make them shine with tears.

He loves the way she smiles at him and how she has so many different smiles. He’s especially fond of the glazed “I didn’t know you could do that with your tongue.” smile. Though his favorite is they way she smiles when he returns from a mission; when she smiles like that at him it feels like home.

He loves her enthusiasm for, well, everything. And her unfettered joy at sharing those things with everyone around her.

Steve loves waking up beside her and watching her sleep, it’s the only time she holds still long enough for him to try and capture her with his pencils. Sometimes, though, he just wakes up only to see that she’s still there before curling his body around hers, letting her breathing lull him back to sleep.

Her absolute honesty endears her to him more than he can ever express; even though she’s more than half convinced she needs to learn verbal restraint. It means he never has to wonder where he stands with her; it’s a trait that reminds him of Bucky; and he wants to think his best friend would have liked her.

He loves the quiet time together in their apartment when they sit on the couch, reading and drawing, or watching a movie. Technically it’s _his_ apartment since the one that’s hers still has some of her things in it. But most of her clothes have slowly migrated upstairs, and last week she carried up the framed picture of them kissing that had been taken by Fury’s surveillance team. Steve wonders if he should just officially invite her to move in.

Steve catches himself, sometimes, wondering what a girl like Darcy, vivacious, gorgeous, and all together in charge of her life, sees in him. Despite the serum, despite saving the world, most of the time he’s just a kid from Brooklyn who never could keep his mouth shut when it came for sticking up for the little guy.

He marvels at how strong she is. Not like Thor or Hulk, but the kind of inner strength that’s allowed her to befriend two deadly assassins, babysit volatile scientists, and keep Pepper’s life running as smoothly as she can, all while never allowing it to subsume her sense of self.

She travels now with Pepper for her new job, and he misses her when she’s gone. Privately he agrees with Tony, ‘Welcome Home’ sex is amazing. 

He loves the way she sends him postcards from the places she goes. She rarely writes much; but she always signs the cards ‘Yours, Darcy’. The possessive part of him loves that she’s his.

He doesn’t know what the future holds, and he knows he risks his life every time the Avengers are called to assemble. He _does_ know that whatever future he has he wants to spend as much of it with her as he can. 

Steve Rogers loves Darcy Lewis, and he’s started to think about doing it for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, till death do us part.


	2. Say Hey (I Love You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy Lewis loves Steve Rogers.
> 
> _Darcy was a little afraid of how quickly she’d fallen in love with Steve. It was that fear that had her holding on to the words ‘I love you’ until she was in the hospital after jumping out of a moving car to escape her kidnappers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to publish this yesterday, but a raging case of food poisoning threw a spanner in the works of that plan. 
> 
> So here's some schmoop a day later than planned. Enjoy!

Darcy was a little afraid of how quickly she’d fallen in love with Steve. It was that fear that had her holding on to the words ‘I love you’ until she was in the hospital after jumping out of a moving car to escape her kidnappers.

After that day though, she never failed to tell him. 

She loves his dry sense of humor; and how, now that he’s gotten a firm footing in the twenty first century, he takes wicked glee in turning other people's (Tony’s) expectations of what they think he knows back on them.

She loves the way her hand fits in his and that when they walk together he shortens his stride just enough that she doesn’t have to hurry to keep up; that despite their differences in size, they seem to just fit.

Darcy loves that he expects her to be self sufficient and capable. She thinks she has Peggy Carter to thank for his acceptance of capable women and is a little torn over thanking her.

She loves watching him draw, the way he can just _create_ art as though its as easy as breathing. She has some small skill with a camera, but she feels it’s a pale talent compared to what he can do with a pencil.

He accepts the clinging hugs she gives him when he returns from a mission without question or needless reassurance, and she loves that too. He just folds his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.

She loves the way he holds her to him when they’re making love. And she loves the little bruises she gets when he grips just a little too tightly when they’re trying to fuck each other through the bed.

When he brings her flowers he always buys a bouquet with at least a few dahlias in it; her heart still skips a beat when he snaps one off its stem and weaves the flower in her hair.

He’s one of the most genuinely _good_ people she’s ever known. Rescue kittens from trees, walk old ladies across the street, and hold doors for anyone good. He always carries a little spare change so he can give the panhandlers at least a quarter or two. Darcy finds herself wanting to be a better person because of him.

She loves being able to reach out and just touch him. Even if he does tease her that she’s just using him as a personal space heater. She loves the feel of her skin against his; and the feel of all that muscle under smooth skin.

Every other boyfriend or lover she has ever had has tried to change her in some way; Steve never has. He has only ever accepted her for who she is, and if he sometimes puts a hand over his eyes in exasperation and says her name in that way that suggests perhaps she went just a little too far, well he never asks her to stop. 

She hates their time apart; often now with her job for Pepper and his duties as an Avenger. But she loves coming home to him.

Darcy has been in love before but being in love with Steve feels different. It feels like wanting to have a future and asking him what he thinks about having children. It feels like building their own traditions and their own smaller family unit within the chaos that is the family of the Avengers.

So, when one balmy August evening as they’re walking through Central Park, when Steve slips a small velvet box out of the pocket of his leather jacket and says he’s been thinking about their future she simply turns to him, wraps her arms around his neck and says “Yes.” before he can ask the question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaahhh! I'm done! 
> 
> Thank you everyone for your kind words and encouragement! Thank you everyone who made suggestions and provided feedback!
> 
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a companion piece to this and then I think (maybe) I'm done writing this version of Steve and Darcy.
> 
> Thank you everyone for the kind words and encouragement!


End file.
